The End (CONTAINS BZRK RELOADED SPOILERS)
by GoBzrk
Summary: When the world finally discovers the truth about all of it, the biots and nanobots, the Armstrongs and BZRK, one question remains: Who is Lear? The final battle is coming, but this is a different type of war, a different game for them all to play. Who will win? *This is a multi-chapter story, but updates will be sporadic* FIC CONTAINS BZRK RELOADED SPOILERS. SET AFTER RELOADED
1. Chapter 1

The world had opened the Pandora's box of nanotechnology. The secret was out, all of it, the whole damn thing. Biots and nanobots, the Armstrong twins, BZRK. The story broke three days ago. Some fresh-outta-college journalist had stumbled upon a couple of TFDs, and it all spiraled out of control from there.

Of course, if one thing was left out, it was the most important to Noah Cotton.

Who the hell was Lear? More importantly, why had he, she, or they allowed the story to break? Lear had to be behind this. Why else was the mad king's name left out of the story?

Plath, needless to say, was very unhappy when Jin showed them the morning news broadcast. The only word from Lear was a text message, that she got literally the instant before she nearly exploded from pure anger, that said: "Await further instructions".

And now, three days in, they had further instructions.

Lear told them to "lay low" and disperse for the time being. That meant Jin and Anya were watching over Vincent in Central Park, and Wilkes was out at some thrift shop trying to find more of her bizarre style, and that left Plath and Keats stuck with Billy the Kid at the cinema. Billy the Kid could not take a hint, so it was Keats to his left and Plath to his right, with a large popcorn resting in BZRK's newest member's lap. In a way this was safer, since Billy seemed to have an unbelievable streak of getting in trouble. Ever since the hydras, everyone kept a close eye on the kid.

Keats was a little frustrated, though. He did not want to babysit Billy on their 'day off' from BZRK. He wanted to do many, many things with Plath, and none of those things involved Billy.

Plath did have that four star hotel room, after all.

Besides, they all sensed the end nearing. Even in the cinema, people whispered about the earth-shattering news during the previews. It was all coming down to the final showdown, and no one knew how that would end. The Armstrong twins were still in hiding, and the fate of the world rested in a couple of crazed kids' hands.

A couple of crazed kids who had the day off.

"I was right," Plath said. "This is a boy movie."

"It hasn't even started." Keats countered.

"I can tell." She said, checking her phone for the sixth time since they sat down. Plath was not resting easy on her day off. She must have sent twenty texts to Lear in the past few hours. Lear hadn't responded. "What do you wanna do after the movie?"

"We should totally check out those street vender guys," Billy said, although she hadn't been talking to him. The poor kid didn't even know he was the third wheel.

Keats groaned, this was going to be a long, long day. No wonder Jin and Wilkes rushed out this morning; they wanted to dump Billy on them.

Could he really blame them? Was this some BZRK hazing thing? You're new, kids, so deal with Billy and make sure he doesn't almost destroy the world again. Have fun.

"The Avengers" finally got started, and halfway through the movie Plath discovered popcorn at the nano-level. P3 had enhanced imagery, so she walked on brilliant yellow bubbles throughout the movie. To Keats, the nano-popcorn looked like honeycombs, millions and millions of honeycombs.

It was the one place Billy couldn't crash. He had no biots yet. They were partially afraid he'd accidentally kill it.

Down in the meat, Keats wouldn't want Billy as backup. Plath, yes. Wilkes, absolutely. He still didn't fully trust Jin after the wiring incident, but they all had an unspoken agreement that down in the nano, you did everything you could. No matter what grudges. Madness or death, and no one deserved madness. Keats knew this first hand with his brother. Death was better.

"Will you shut your damn phone off?" Someone hissed behind them.

Plath turned around, and Keats saw the fire in her eyes. She was angry about something, and she wasn't telling him. What secret was she keeping? Had Lear told her something?

"Seriously?" Plath said. "You wanna talk? Mr. I-bought-the-loudest-candy available? Shut up and enjoy the stupid movie."

All things considered, the guy got off easy. The real Plath stuck her head in a gas oven. A harsh retort was low on the scale of possible reactions a ticked off Sadie could unleash.

The man with the Skittles shrunk back in his seat, and Plath periodically checked her phone, and when the credits rolled she bolted out of the theater. Keats and Billy had to push through the leaving crowd to catch up with her, and she was already on the street, wildly looking in a million different directions. She cursed and threw her phone on the ground.

"What's wrong!" He asked.

She was shaking her head, like she was coming to terms with something awful. Keats felt like he'd been punched in the gut just by looking at her, at the pain in her eyes.

"Stern. They fucking have Stern!"

"Who has who?" Billy asked, but Keats didn't need to hear her answer.

The end, it seemed, had begun.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Two povs because reasons. The lack of BZRK fic is utterly depressing, so I hope to fix that!

Everyone assumed she'd been texting Lear all this morning, and that wasn't entirely untrue, so she hadn't bothered to tell them what was going on. After all, Plath was the leader now. She had to be responsible. She couldn't just go on a suicide mission like this. And she couldn't tell them part of her was thinking of doing it, of ditching BZRK and ditching Keats to find Stern, because they didn't really need her for her skills, they needed her for her connections. She could bow out towards the end, she could do that for Stern.

Of course in complete Stern he defied his kidnappers and told her not to come, to just not show up.

But she had to show. Stern was the only family she had left. The only family, period. Her father had trusted Stern, and he was the one who sat by her side as she lay wrecked with pain in the hospital.

She didn't want to win the war if the cost was Stern. Not Stern. Why couldn't she keep the people she had left? Couldn't she just...hide them away?

No. Keats was an important twitcher. Without Keats and Vincent they stood no chance. Keats was at risk, something Plath understood, but not Stern. Not Stern.

Plath was way in over her head if she thought she could lead BZRK. Like hell she could.

One question remained on her mind. How had the Armstrongs got Lear's cell phone? If they caught Lear, the living mystery itself, they'd be gloating by now. Lear told her not to trust any future communications, that he/she had people on their trail, that Stern was going to be fine and returned unwired, but Plath had told Lear she was not one for fairy tale endings and to cut the bull.

Lear then said they found the right person, that she was the right person. Apparently not, Plath thought dully, as she spilled her guts to Keats in the taxi.

"...and I don't know what to do," she confessed.

They'd given her an ultimatum. She knew they would kill her, and that would only be at the end of whatever they had in store for her.

Rumor had it that Benjamin Armstrong was out for her blood. She would be lucky if all they were planning was her murder. Would they wire her to their side and drag this war out, even with the public's knowledge about Nexus Humanus?

Or worse, what were they wiring Stern to do, right now?

"I gotta hand it to them, they really backed me into a corner." She said and let lose a horrible parody of a laugh. "Bang, bang, twitch, no more Dad, brother, and Stern."

Keats dropped his gaze, suddenly finding the taxi floor with all it's New York City wonders much more fascinating than they'd been a few moments ago. Chewed up gum of a variety of colors, soda caps, and even a broken beer bottle captured his attention, and he said, "I'm sorry," and she just punched the car window, probably bruising her knuckles, and sank into the seat. She hoped the worn faux leather would swallow her whole.

"You can't...you can't fall apart, Sadie. Not now." Keats said.

"I know," she sighed.

Plath watched as the city passed them by. Soon enough, they were back at the new BZRK New York headquarters, a small, dingy little apartment decorated with a variety of different colored molds, mostly black and green, and all looking much more stunning in the nano than they did in the macro.

They took the elevator to the fifth floor, and after unlocking the apartment with her key, Plath sat on the old, worn out sofa and said nothing for a very long time.

Wilkes hadn't quite reached the drop stage, but she had shopped. She never understood that phrase. Let's shop till we drop, her mother had said before Wilkes hit what her mother called 'that phase'. Mom had been pretty big on retail therapy, which was probably why her parents could never seem to keep the lights on. How many times had her parents argued over money? It was practically the same argument each time, and it would end when someone threw a glass or beer bottle at the other, and Wilkes blocked it out with very loud music every time.

When she came across BZRK, Ophelia had taken her shopping. Once. It had been a unique experience, because Ophelia had wanted to get to know Wilkes, and Wilkes had made it pretty clear she wasn't the type of girl most people should know. Madness might be their fate, but the girl who had once been Eva Drew was already crazy.

But poor, poor Ophelia was gone. She escaped madness, at least. She would not spend an eternity raving in an asylum. No matter what happened to Wilkes, she could always take comfort in that.

She was at the counter paying for her new clothes—cause, hey, if she was going to die in a macro-showdown, might as well go out in some threads that hadn't been blown to pieces—when she saw the last person she expected to see.

At least, she thought it was her. Same dark hair, which was the only feature she could see, since the girl was observing a rack of shirts like a scientist studying under a microscope. Same height, too. Wilkes didn't think it was just odd that she didn't have Blue Eyes with her, she couldn't get over the possibility of Rich Bitch even breathing the air in this store. Wilkes wasn't going to let her live it down.

She grabbed her bag and stealthily snuck up behind the girl, not making a sound. At the last second she jumped, grasping the girl's shoulders and screaming, "Hey!" only to realize after the look of absolute horror on the girl's face that, "Hey, you're not Freckles McMoneybags."

Sure enough, her phone buzzed. Text from Lear. "Minako is from Japanese Cell. Take her with you."

Not-Plath gave her a wild, confused look and nodded. "I...am looking for Lear."

Wilkes laughed, a laugh that emerged from some dark, sardonic corner of her mind. "You and the rest of the world, kid."

"I have a message. From the Japanese cell."

She didn't stop laughing, not yet, anyway, not while she shot the real Plath a text message informing her of her Asian lookalike, and certainly not while walking with the girl a few blocks down the street. Minako waited and observed the girl's bizarre tattoos. When Wilkes finally calmed down, Minako asked, "How old are you?"

Caught off guard, she answered, "Uh, seventeen. Why?"

It was Minako's turn to scare Wilkes, because with that lopsided smile showing all her whitish-yellow teeth, the girl emanated her own brand of crazy. Like, old school crazy.

"Prime number." Minako said, like it was a perfectly rational explanation, but Wilkes did not have the slightest clue what a prime number was. Under the girl's breath she heard her counting her steps.

"Uh, cool." Wilkes said, dropping a twenty she may have taken from Freckles McMoneybags' purse in a street performer's guitar case.

"We will be leaving soon. Leaving New York, I mean. We need more twitchers, and the girl who calls herself Plath can fix them."

"Vincent is still a little cuckoo, ya know."

"I know what it is like to be insane." Minako softened her smile. Still a crazy chick, Wilkes decided. She already liked her.

"The war isn't over." Minako added.

"When will it ever be?" Wilkes mused. The war, humanity's collective struggle of bloodshed, would not end with the death of a two-headed freak. It simply wouldn't end, period. The nano was only a new battleground for that war to wreck havoc.

Well, Wilkes was still kicking. That's all that mattered at the end of the day.  
***


End file.
